Frustration high at farm bill rally

Bright sun, Johnny Cash tapes, the proverbial hay bales, and a High Plains stem-winder delivered by Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran, exhorting his former House Republican colleagues that it’s 3 a.m. with a storm coming: get off the sidelines, hook up the tractor “and let’s go harvest a farm bill.”

And then there were the signs. “Do You Eat? You Need a Farm Bill Now” or “Old MacBoehner Had a Farm Bill, Ei-Ei-O.”

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It was no match for “tractor-cade” under Jimmy Carter or “Rally for Rural America” in the last years of Bill Clinton. But hundreds of farmers and their lobbyists rallied in front of the Capitol Wednesday in a last, bittersweet attempt to pressure House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to take up a farm bill before the November elections.

Moran stole the show but was also a reminder that his fellow Kansan, Sen. Pat Roberts, the ranking Republican on the Senate Agriculture Committee, didn’t come. House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) also stayed away, underscoring the increased partisan tensions as the farm stalemate continues.

Indeed, since talks at the Republicans’ national convention in Tampa, the fix has seemed in from the House GOP: no action before the election and a push later to postpone debate into the next Congress.

“There is no good reason why we didn’t bring this farm bill to the floor,” Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson told the crowd. But as the ranking Democrat on the Ag panel and a veteran of many farm bill fights, Peterson also stung many by gruffly warning that the agriculture movement must exert more grassroots pressure if it is to have real success in Washington.

“The groundswell is not out there. It is not happening at the grassroots level,” Peterson said. “This rally is a good starting point but …to change this we need 100 or 200 calls from people in their districts to these members (of Congress).”

“I’m here to tell you if you don’t do that we’re not going to get a farm bill,” Peterson said. “It’s that simple. We went through August and we really didn’t see the groundswell of support out there. We’ve got to make this happen. You’ve got to make this happen. It’s got to come from the grassroots.”

Pam Johnson, the incoming president of the National Corn Growers Association and a sixth generation Iowa farmer with her husband and sons, was miffed.

“That angers me a lot,” she told POLITICO. “It angers me a lot that now the blame is on farmers. Farmers are home harvesting right now. And they’re doing their business. They assume their representatives are here doing their business.

“If we ran our business the way they run their business, we’d be out of business.”

Nonetheless, for all his rough edges, Peterson, a former House Agriculture Committee chairman, has been one of the most aggressive players in the House or Senate in trying to get a bill through Congress. And the good farm economy — even with this summer’s drought — has taken some pressure off the House GOP to move a bill.